Welcome to my blog---an eyes-open, no-holds-barred exploration of life through the combined prism of mindfulness and metaphysics. A member of the Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Association, I lecture at the NSW Institute of Psychiatry to mental health workers and also work as a lawyer and Unitarian minister. My interests include the psychology of religion, addiction recovery, the teachings of J. Krishnamurti, Buddhism, Humanism, and John Anderson's realist philosophy.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

IS MINDFULNESS A RELIGION?

In the Scientology case, 4 of 5 justices of the High Court of Australia, in the course of determining whether Scientology constituted a “religion” for the purposes of section 116 of The Australian Constitution, considered belief in a supernatural Being, Thing or Principle to be a necessary indicia of or prerequisite for a particular belief system being a religion.

Religion ordinarily involves all of the following: first, a system of beliefs or statement of doctrine concerning so-called "ultimate reality"; secondly, an associated moral or ethical code of conduct; thirdly, participation in prescribed forms of ritual, observances and other acts of devotion.

In addition, religion ordinarily involves both “faith” and “worship”, accompanied by a system of moral philosophy or particular doctrines of faith as well as a religious community which supports that faith and its organization and practices.

My 2007 doctoral dissertation sought to formulate and propose a more suitable legal definition of “religion” in substitution for that formulated by the High Court of Australia in the Scientology case having regard to salient judicial authorities from the USA as well as non-judicial authorities.

The present legal definition of religion in Australia is misleading, inadequate and unhelpful. First, the definition does not readily accommodate a number of important belief systems that are generally regarded as being religious even though they do not involve any notion of the supernatural in the sense in which that word is ordinarily understood. Secondly, the High Court of Australia has provided little or no guidance as to how one determines whether a particular belief system involves a “supernatural” view of reality. Thirdly, I am of the opinion that it is impossible, philosophically and otherwise, to postulate a meaningful distinction between the “natural” and the supposedly “supernatural”.

Now, Mindfulness does not involve or require any faith at all ... certainly no faith in a supernatural Being, Thing or Principle ... nor does Mindfulness involve any worship or impose any system of beliefs or statement of doctrine, nor any code of conduct, nor any prescribed forms of ritual or religious observances.

Mindfulness is simply the practice of the presence of the awareness of the action of the present moment ... that is, the practice of paying attention, in the present,purposefully andreceptively, choicelessly and non-judgmentally, to whatever arises in the present moment ... moment to moment … both inside and outside of us.

Mindfulness does not require that you believe in one god or many gods, or become a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Christian, or whatever. People of every religion, and none, can derive lasting benefits from the regular practice of Mindfulness including Mindfulness Meditation.

True it is that Mindfulness, and Mindfulness Meditation, can both refer to a specific type or practice of meditation known asVipassanā Meditation, which is used as a psychological and educational tool in Theravāda Buddhism (a naturalistic form of Buddhismof which there are a number of different schools). Vipassanā Meditation is also knownas Insight[ful], Sensory or Thought Watching Meditation. However, Mindfulness and Mindfulness Meditation are not restricted to Buddhism,Buddhists or Buddhist meditation. Indeed, there are several different types or forms of Buddhist meditation, and Buddhists do not claim to “own” or have a monopoly on Mindfulness and Mindfulness Meditation.

Mindfulness takes meditation … in the form of deliberate and purposeful awareness of the present moment … and applies it, as a psychological and educational tool, to one’s whole life.

What about meditation itself? Isn't that religious? No. Meditation, in one form or another, has been practised by human beings for thousands of years, long before most of the major world religions were formed. Meditation is as simple, and as natural, as breathing in and breathing out ... from one moment to the next ... until the mind reaches a "median", that is, a point of equilibrium, balance, harmony and equanimity. Meditation is simply medicine, or exercise, for the mind which, by the power of its own non-resistance and calm but secure acceptance (as opposed to mere passivity), is truly life-enhancing as opposed to life-denying.

Forget about "expanded consciousness", so-called higher orders or levels of reality, and all notions of transcendence. Meditation may well bring us to a state of choiceless awareness and detached, but otherwise bare, attention that some describe as being "supramundane", "transnatural" or "transrational", but true meditation is grounded firmly in everyday reality, that is, in the one order or level of reality in which we all live and move and have our being.

Unlike religion, Mindfulness is not "organized" ... and may that always be the case. Krishnamurti often told his listeners this little anecdote:

"There is a rather lovely story of a man who was walking along the street and behind him were two strangers. As he walked along, he saw something very bright and he picked it up and looked at it and put it in his pocket and the two men behind him observed this and one said to the other: 'This is a very bad business for you, is it not?' and the other who was the devil answered: 'No, what he picked up is truth. But I am going to help him organize it.'"

If Mindfulness were ever to become systematized and organized, one could never be successfully liberated from all those conditioned responses, predispositions and predilections, and psychological tendencies that otherwise beset us. Religion "believes" ... Mindfulness "knows" and "understands". There is a huge difference between the those two things.

Mindfulness is not a religion, or even a philosophy, but rather a way of being, a way of life, a journey in self-discovery, and an education. Mindfulness, being devoid of all notions of religiosity, is entirely experiential and, unlike most if not all religions, it is empirically based.

Escape from the Prison of Self ...

MINDFULNESS ... AND RELIGION

MINDFULNESS ... AND INSIGHT

MINDFULNESS Ideogram/Calligraphy

MINDFULNESS

‘Mindfulness is the presence of bare attention to, and choiceless awareness of, all or one or more parts of the content (whether internal or external or both) of the action of the present moment ... from one moment to the next. It is the awareness of awareness.’ IEJ.

‘[Mindfulness is] the most simple and direct, the most thorough and effective, method for training and developing the mind for its daily tasks and problems …’Nyanaponika Thera.

‘Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally … When we commit ourselves to paying attention in an open way, without falling prey to our own likes and dislikes, opinions and prejudices, projections and expectations, new possibilities open up and we have a chance to free ourselves from the straitjacket of unconsciousness.’Jon Kabat-Zinn.

‘The arising of form and the ceasing of form---everything that has been heard, sensed, and known, sought after and reached by the mind---all this is the embodied world, to be penetrated and realized.’Buddha.

‘You cannot buy mindfulness in a grocery store, it must be generated from within yourself.’Thich Nhat Hahn.

BELIEFS

‘A belief, religious or political, obviously hinders the understanding of ourselves. It acts as a screen through which we are looking at ourselves. If we have no beliefs with which the mind has identified itself ... there is the beginning of the understanding of oneself.’ J. Krishnamurti.

‘People assume that beliefs can open the highway to happiness, when in fact a person’s beliefs keep that person on endless detours. The reason beliefs cannot sustain anyone is because life's events do not believe in beliefs.’ Vernon Howard.

‘Do not believe, for if you believe, you will never know. If you really want to know, don't believe.’Buddha.

‘Belief [is] a means of escape from the reality of what is ... Belief can never lead to reality ... The believing mind is not an inquiring mind ... To find out, one must be free of belief ...’ J. Krishnamurti.

‘There is hope for whoever does not know what to believe. Human belief is a combination of superstition, gullibility and mental laziness. We need not believe anything; we need to find, to see, to know.’ Vernon Howard.

‘I am not giving a new system of philosophy, religion or belief. Those systems are cages for the mind to be caught up in. They do not help us, they are merely hindrances. They are a means of exploitation. They destroy … It is only the free mind that can meet life, not the mind that is tethered to any system, to any belief, to any particular knowledge.’ J. Krishnamurti.

Dr IAN ELLIS-JONES ...

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MINDFULNESS

‘... And how does one, by protecting oneself, protect others? By repeated practice of mindfulness, by its meditative development, and by frequent occupation with it. ...’Buddha. ‘Taking even one step in mindfulness can benefit all beings on Earth.'' Thich Nhat Hanh.

‘You are not analyzing, criticizing, judging ... you are listening, are you not? Your mind is in a state where the thought process is not active, but is very alert. Yes? And that alertness is not of time, is it? You are merely being alert, passively receptive, and yet fully aware; and it is only in this state that there is understanding. Surely, when the mind is agitated, questioning, worrying, dissecting, analyzing, there is no understanding. And when there is the intensity to understand, the mind is obviously tranquil.’J. Krishnamurti.

‘Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.’ Thich Nhat Hanh.

‘The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.’Buddha.

TRUTH

‘I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect ... The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth.’ J. Krishnamurti.

‘Truth is not a matter of opinion.’ Vernon Howard.

‘Truth is not in some far distant place; it is the looking at “what is”.’ J. Krishnamurti.

‘You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’Jesus.

‘Truth is not cumulative. It is from moment to moment … It must be discovered anew ... Truth is not to be comprehended through the passage of time. Truth is not a thing to be attained ... it cannot be perceived gradually.’ J. Krishnamurti.

‘There are only facts, i.e., occurrences in space and time.’ John Anderson.

‘We cannot really think in one way and act in another.’Thomas Troward.

‘There is a single way of being, that of ordinary things in space and time.Experience consists of matters of fact and experience takes the propositional form. There is no way of getting behind the proposition to something either lower or higher.’ John Anderson.

‘Truth is to be discovered and understood in every action, in every thought, in every feeling ... it is to be observed at each moment of every day ... Truth is timeless, but the moment you capture it---as and when you say, “I have found truth, it is mine”---it is no longer truth.’ J. Krishnamurti.

‘To know something is to come into active relations, to enter into 'transactions', with it.’John Anderson.

‘Desire will in due time externalize itself as concrete fact.’Thomas Troward.

THE FALSE SELF

‘Man has a false sense of identity. He thinks he is his false self, which he is not. He is his True Self, but doesn't know it. All man's grief can be traced back to his utterly vain attempt to prove this false sense of identity, for instance, through a compulsive drive to be admired and applauded. Yes, the egotistical self craves and demands applause, but man is not his ego-self.… To escape the self-trap, to be sane and decent and awake and whole — that is all that matters.’Vernon Howard.

‘The “I” and “me” are brought about through thought, which is the past. That little consciousness which you call the “I” is the false result of a false environment. It is not something permanent or eternal … Intelligence is possible only when there is real freedom from the self, from the “me” …’J. Krishnamurti.

‘Virtually all our problems are the result of wrongly believing that we have a separate permanent self.’ Vernon Howard.

‘The only way you, or I, or anyone else finds freedom is by extinguishing the false sense of “I” and living from our authentic nature.’ Vernon Howard.

‘By regarding things and clinging to them as “I” or “mine,” bondage occurs. When bound to something, we get stuck in it, just like being stuck in prison.’Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu.

‘I can of mine own self do nothing.’ Jesus.

‘There needs to be a shift in emphasis from self to non-self. How? Five wizard words:get your mind off yourself.’Norman Vincent Peale.

‘Clinging to self as self, and then as belonging to self, attaching to “I” and “mine,” this is the true prison, the heart and soul of prison … May you all enjoy success in destroying the prisons, that is, attā, self.’Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu.

‘How do you let go? You just let go.’ Vernon Howard.

‘It is simply the mind clouded over by impure desires, and impervious to wisdom, that obstinately persists in thinking of “me” and “mine” ... Attachment to an ego-personality leads people into delusions ...’ Buddha.

‘In the spiritual life, only self-failure succeeds.’ Vernon Howard.

AWARENESS OF AWARENESS

MY THERAPEUTIC PARADIGM

My therapeutic paradigm is based on both Eastern and Western insights, teachings and practices, and is grounded in the transformative principle that ‘self cannot change self’ (but the person, being a power-not-oneself, can change). The paradigm combines key elements from all of the following: (i) the regular practice of insight meditation (vipassanā meditation / mindfulness); (ii) the ideas and teachings of the Indian savant Jiddu Krishnamurti and the American spiritual teacher Vernon Howard together with Gurdjieffian ‘Fourth Way’ teachings (in particular, the need for constant self-observation andthe existence in the mind of many false selves ('I's and 'me's)); (iii)the ideas of the philosophers P F Strawson and Ludwig Wittgenstein (on self, mind, body, and person) together withthe ‘Boston personalism’ of the American philosopher and theologian Borden Parker Bowne; (iv) the Twelve Step recovery model as interpreted and applied by the Australian addiction psychologist Jim Maclaine in the form of his ‘self illusion therapy’; and (v) the psycho-philosophical realism of the Scottish-born Australian philosopher and educator Professor John Anderson.

WHAT IS 'EMPTINESS'?

MINDFULNESS MEDITATION: AWARENESS FROM MOMENT TO MOMENT

‘True meditation is constant awareness, constant pliability, and clear discernment …Concentration is not meditation … Concentration is not the way of meditation, it is not the way to the uncovering of that which may be called the immeasurable. Concentration implies exclusion, it implies the thinker who is making an effort to concentrate on something … Meditation involves attention, which is not concentration, although concentration is included in attention ... [Meditation] is not an escape from the understanding of what yourself is actually.’ J. Krishnamurti.

‘Awareness in itself is healing.’Fritz Pearls.

‘Mindfulness is about falling awake rather than asleep. Relaxation is more of a side effect. Mindfulness is about being in the present, taking things one moment at a time and being aware of whatever arises – not creating a pleasant experience.’ Shamash Alidina.

‘Seeing the false as false is the beginning of wisdom, but we cannot see the false if we are not aware of every moment of the day, of everything we say, feel and think and you will see that out of that awareness comes that extraordinary thing called love and … a person who loves is pure and knows life.’J. Krishnamurti.

‘The secret for a heavenly existence is to learn how to discontinue yourself from moment to moment.’ Vernon Howard.

‘The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence.’ Norman Vincent Peale.

‘Live from moment to moment, just as if every new moment is all there is. For that, in truth, is all there is.’ Vernon Howard.

‘Get the present moment right.’Emmet Fox.

‘The past has no power over the present moment.’ Eckhart Tolle.

MINDFULNESS MEDITATION

MINDFULNESS ... AN ALL-DAY AFFAIR

MINDFULNESS ... ALL-DAY-LONG

Dr IAN ELLIS-JONES ...

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F A Q

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Q. Is mindfulness a religion?

A. Not at all. Religion ordinarily involves a system of beliefs or statement of doctrine, a code of conduct, and prescribed forms of ritual or religious observances, as well as both ‘faith’ and’ worship’, accompanied by a system of moral philosophy or particular doctrines of faith as well as a religious community which supports that faith and its organization and practices. Mindfulness does not involve or require any faith at all - certainly no faith in a supernatural ‘Being’, ‘Thing’ or ‘Principle’ - nor does mindfulness involve any worship or impose any system of beliefs or statement of doctrine, code of conduct or prescribed forms of ritual or religious observances.

Q. Is mindfulness Buddhist?

A. Mindfulness can refer to a specific type or practice of meditationused as a psychological and educational tool in Theravāda Buddhism (a naturalistic form of Buddhism of which there are a number of different schools) known as vipassanā meditation. However, mindfulness is not restricted to Buddhism, Buddhists or Buddhist meditation. Indeed, there are several different types or forms of Buddhist meditation, and Buddhists do not claim to ‘own’ or have a monopoly on mindfulness and mindfulness meditation. In short, any person can practise mindfulness, irrespective of their religion or lack of religion.

Q. Is mindfulness a philosophy?

A. Not really. A philosophy ordinarily consists of numerous teachings, ideas or principles which collectively provide an overall coherent view of the purpose or meaning of life. Mindfulness has teachings, but does not seek to explain the purpose or meaning of life.

Q. What, then, is mindfulness?

A. Mindfulness is a way of life, a journey in self-discovery and an education. It is a lifelong inquiry into what it means to be fully present in the present moment ... from moment to moment. In that regard, mindfulness is simply the presence of bare attention to, and choiceless awareness of, the action (both internal and external) of the present moment ... from one moment to the next.

Q. How does mindfulness meditation differ from other types of meditation?

A. Most forms of meditation involve the 'method' of concentration upon some image (be it physical or mental) or sound, and are designed primarily to calm the mind. They provide little or no insight into the action of the present moment including one’s consciousness and external surroundings. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is a means by which we can gain understanding and insight into ourselves and our behaviour and learn to accept whatever is ... with emotional equanimity. Mindfulness requires no 'method' as such, but is simply the direct, immediate, and unmediated experience of life as it unfolds from one moment to the next. Mindfulness simply happens... when we remove the barriers to its happening.

Q. Is mindfulness ‘good’ for you?

A. Most definitely. Mindfulness produces observable and measurable psycho-physical changes in both the body and the mind. In that regard, the evidence for the efficacy of mindfulness is abundant and very strong indeed. Since 1967 over 1,500 studies worldwide have been conducted by over 250 independent research institutes and centres showing mindfulness meditation to be clinically effective for the management of, among other things, stress, depression, anxiety and panic disorders, chronic pain, substance abuse, eating disorders, obsessional thinking, impulsivity, strong emotional reactivity and a wide array of other medical and mental health related conditions. There is also documented evidence that mindfulness results in improvements in learning and consciousness, enhanced cognitive functioning and performance, and improvements in concentration, attention to detail and ability to cope with stress. In addition, mindfulness fosters ethical behavior and empathy, improves skills in leadership, problem-solving, negotiation and mediation, and enhances self-esteem and self-awareness.

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